The current state of education in New Mexico is viewed negatively by the media and others. Although we are facing various challenges in our education system with budget cuts, teachers not getting paid what their worth and so forth we need to redirect our focus on the creative and innovative students that we are losing along the way. In New Mexico there are many schools failing but there are just as many who are graduating students with the accurate proficiency to attend college and move forward with their education. We just don’t hear the positive side of education very often. There are exceptional teachers who are teaching in a failing school who are giving their students the education and skills they need to succeed. I feel that teachers need more support and career development that relates to their specific classrooms. The teacher’s effectiveness will improve and help her class achieve all the standardized testing that is required for each student. One of the comments in the documentary that was viewed in class stayed in my mind. The comment was “If students aren’t learning in your classroom then you’re not a good teacher, you’re a good person”. I believe that education should not only be measured by all the standardized testing and requirements by the state, but by the student’s intellectual development as well. There may be a student who comes into a class room at the beginning of the year that is immature and not on the right track academically, but because of his “great” teacher, he changes his behavior and education path by the end of the year. This is a perfect example of how a teacher can do what is required by the state, education wise, but also help a student grow. So in my opinion she is a “great” teacher as well as a good person and that’s what it takes to be an educator.
I agree that education is viewed negatively by the media and others however; I think teachers are getting paid fairly by comparison. A first year teacher with no experience starting salary is $30,000 on average. They are contracted to work 7 hours a day and 185 days a year on average. It calculates to $23.17 an hour. The high end is a Level Three teacher at $50,000 who makes $38.50 an hour. These wages are fair. What are not fair are the working conditions and the inequity in workload. One situation is lack of resources and the disparity of resources from classroom to classroom or from district to district. Another issue is the discrepancy in the number of student in the each classroom. For example: A first year English teacher at Albuquerque High has 20 students and a first year English teacher at Atrisco Heritage has 30 students. They both make the same salary but one has a bigger work load. This brings up another issue you addressed, teacher effectiveness. In the above scenario is it fair to assess these two teachers with the same assessment tool? I think it is unfair to compare the two. This is the problem with current teacher assessments and standardizes tests. I agree with you that teachers should be assessed using emotional and intellectual development standards and benchmarks in addition to test scores. They should also be compared equally to one another; 30 student in a class to 30 students in a class or Math Teacher to Math Teacher. Finally I like your comment about the student getting on the right track because of his or her “great” teacher. More of these stories need to be told. It is up to students, parents, and teacher to fight the negative view the media and politicians have placed on education in New Mexico. Just imagine if every parent of every student in New Mexico voted for candidates who were knowledgeable and willing to improve education. We would be blogging about how proud we were of the education system in New Mexico.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it takes more than student performance on standardized tests to make a great teacher. Teaching should be about more than those skills, it should include emotional and intellectual teaching as well. It is too easy to look at the number of failing schools and complain about the state of education. A continued focus on just AYP will indeed cause us to lose more and more innovative, creative students who are bright, capable individuals, but think outside the acceptable box. We need additional measures of success and methods of school assessment that speak to the larger picture of just how well our students are doing.
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